


two strings but one voice

by CinderScoria



Series: her name is jade [9]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Gen, spoilers through the season 3 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4358429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinderScoria/pseuds/CinderScoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't want to do this. She does not want to do this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	two strings but one voice

**Author's Note:**

> don't read this I was sick when I wrote it and it makes no sense.

She doesn’t want to do this.

She does not… want to do this.

What a fucking bastard. What a disgusting piece of shit. What a waste of space and emotion and heartache. Janine sits at the desk and stares at the paper and tries to see out of these damn blurry eyes.

Five wants them to put up a marker for him. Sam wants to retire his number. Jody wants to forget he ever existed. Janine just wants him back.

What a horrible stain on the face of Abel Township. What a terrible human being.

God she misses him.

The pencil snaps in her grip, and that does it. She needed that! There are few spares in this town and they do not need to be recycling them on accounts of no-good, rugged, beautiful, charming, supposedly immortal traitors! Son of a bitch!

The door opens, and Runner Five is suddenly there. She’s sliding her knit sleeve, the one Jody made for her, up on her arm and adjusting the backpack on her shoulders. Her dark eyes casually drift from the snapped pencil to the stretched look on Janine’s face.

Janine straightens. “Five. I don’t recall asking you into my office today.”

Five just stares at her, before tossing another backpack her way. Janine barely catches it before she realizes, with a strangled gasp, that it used to be his. She drops it like it’s coated in acid, and then curses her own foolishness. He’s gone. It’s not his anymore. He left it the day he left Abel, and so it became another thing he left behind.

“What is this?” she says flatly, picking it up again and avoiding the patched number 3 Jody sewed onto the strap.

Five arches an eyebrow. Janine’s not nearly as good as Sam when it comes to deciphering her expressions, but that is a very clear, “You know what it is.”

“Not when I meant, Runner Five.”

Five flashes a mirthless smile, hands her a headset, and turns to walk out the door.

Janine stops to consider this. She’s tired. It’s been a week since Moonchild tossed herself to an unforgiving death, since they were all safe and back together, since Simon sacrificed himself to save the entire world. She has so much more to do than just filling out reports for Mullins. She hasn’t slept, she barely eats, and if Runner Five was worrying about her mental stability then she’s definitely losing ground. If the runner thinks a run would cheer her up, Janine is far too exhausted to protest.

Sam meets them on the way out. He smiles kindly at Janine, informs her that they can keep the mic off, as he’s only going to be watching their backs, and raises the gates. Then they’re off.

Janine knows exactly where they’re going, too, as soon as they head for the hills. She tends to avoid going to the Forest of Fallen Runners, as she’s not sentimental and has far too many things to do than mourn, but she goes when they lose one, so she knows the way.

Janine carries his backpack. She doesn’t wear it, and that’s possibly sentimental too, but at the moment her mind is too scattered and torn and desolated to care about appearances. Just touching the thing sends shivers down her spine. She’s able to stop herself before she smells it.

Five is a good running partner. Janine knows that even if she could speak, she wouldn’t. She has tact. Possibly too much, Janine thinks, because her eyes calmly state that she knows what Janine is thinking. She probably does. But it unnerves her, how easily Five can cut through the appearances and see the heart of the matter. Of course, Janine knows she’s doing an awful job at maintaining the façade. Sam can attest to that. When he wasn’t glued to Five’s side, he was glued to hers. Janine can only take so many kind words and a gentle prodding before she shoots him herself.

It’s getting late, as the summer days drew to a close. Autumn would be on them before they knew it, which meant they had to stock up on winter gear—especially for the Runners. She’d have to organize supply runs soon, and make sure the walls—

Janine blinks out of thought as Five lightly smacks her arm. The teen frowns a little at her, shaking her head, and that’s all that’s said on the matter.

Right. She’s supposed to be thinking of Simon. That’s why Five’s brought her out here. That’s why she can’t focus on anything else. This problem must be put to rest, before she can think about starting on the others.

He’s dead. He has to be. Janine hopes, not only for her sake, that he is.

Oh Lord, no, she can’t do this. She doesn’t want to. They pass trees and bushes and the sun is warm on her back. The last time she made this trek, he was with her, smiling softly, joking, laughing. She’d scolded him about tact, of all things. He’d defended himself with waggling eyebrows and sexual innuendos.

What an exasperating nuisance. What a headache in the making. What a disgraceful name on a headstone.

They pass the markers and continue down the well beaten trail. It’s cooling down and the sun sinks and the forest is washed in gold and green. Janine’s never really noticed how beautiful this place is. Of course, at the moment she’d notice everything if it meant not thinking that he could be out there, could be alive, could be coming back.

Don’t come back, she pleads in her head. Stay dead. Please, for the love of God, stay dead. What a nightmare. What a knife in her chest.

They reach the beach. There’s nowhere left to run and Five slows, breathes, and motions for Janine to open the backpack. She does. Pulls out torches and matches and just sort of stands there and stares at she tries to figure out what to do next.

Five takes one and lights it, placing it firmly in the sand. She prods Janine into lighting the next one, and they work silently, placing the lights in the beach as the sun continues to drop. Then Five stands back and leaves Janine to gaze at the lake and wonder at how much she misses him.

And she does. Lord. She does. Her mistake. Her fault. Should not have gotten involved. But it’s been years—years—since she’s had human contact, the good kind, the kind that whispers you are loved and cared for and cherished above all things. Of course it’d be him, seducing her with that smile, learning all her secrets and passing them on to the enemy. Of course it’d be him, brushing her hair back, closing his mouth over hers and making her feel like a schoolgirl again. Of course it’d be him, reminding her that there are no free things in life, that wishing is for children and loving someone only opens a spot in the armor for the knife to get through. She thought she trusted no one, thought she let no one in. And she did, and he didn’t even love her, is the crazy bit! Used her and threw her away like a crumpled napkin after he was finished. Played her for a fool.

What a liar. What lying toad. What a traitorous lying filthy child of a man.

She grips the last torch and hurls it into the water. It splashes and hisses and goes up in smoke and she absolutely does not care. She loses it then, grabbing each torch and throwing them as hard as she could into the lake, watching the lights go out one by one. With every impact she snarls curses at his memory, every goddamn yank of that chestnut hair, every smile, every kiss, every stab of every blade as she watched him run away, every word, every laugh, every tear she had kept locked away, she can hold it in no longer, so she doesn’t, and she stands there and paces and screams for what feels like an eternity.

And in the end, as she drops to her knees, Five’s there and waiting to pick her back up. She crouches next to her and nods as Janine begs her not to let him come back, to let him rest, to let him be dead. She grabs her by the elbow and lifts her to her feet and suddenly Janine remembers that she only just turned eighteen, and really has no reason to be so paternal.

Five is a friend, she realizes. A very good friend, who did not stand by when Janine’s brother almost murdered her, and did not defect to Amelia’s authority unless Janine nodded the okay, and did not take it personally when Janine nearly bit her head off every time she checked in on her since Simon died. Five is there, in the chink in her armor. Janine catches her gaze and her voice trembles a little.

“Promise me,” she says, not quite begging, not yet, “promise me that you won’t leave. You’ll stay. You won’t go. Promise me.”

And in hindsight that doesn’t make much sense, but Five nods anyway. She brings a finger to her mouth and then places it on top of her fist, mouthing the words to the sign so Janine has to chance to misinterpret.

And Janine has no reason to take her word for it, but she relaxes. She trusts Runner Five. She trusts Sam Yao. She trusts Maxine Myers. And it might be too late to shut them out now, but she thinks she can live with these choices.

She looks down at the backpack in Five’s hands. They would retire his number, she decided. He was a liar, a traitor, but he was one of their runners. And in the end, still Simon, the man she loved. Still loves. Will always love.

What a man.


End file.
